This website, www.findonvillage.com created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE PIG THIEF

Now all our neighbours' chimnies smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if for cold it hap to die,
We'll bury it in a Christmas Pie,
And evermore be Merry.

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000

First published in the Findon News in December 2000

Publication of the earliest known map of Sussex was by Christopher Saxon.  It did not show the town of Worthing at all.  Broadwater and Terringe were in larger printing than Sountinge, Launcynge and Fyndon, which were later to become Sompting, Lancing and, of course, Findon.

Just before the season of good will in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the year 1584, I have discovered that a Findon husbandman, John Tychborne had the misfortune to have six of his best pigs stolen.  He was justifiably furious.

This crime of pig rustling 416 years ago in Findon was committed on Christmas Eve. The culprit was not another villager, but a labourer, Richard Chapman, from some distance away in East Grinstead. It may have been the severe weather that got the better of him or just that he fancied some pork or bacon.

Whatever his reasons, he decided to plunder the enclosure of John Tychborne that festive season over four centuries ago. It was, no doubt, with much commotion and grunting that he disturbed the animals. Probably followed by squealing as he grappled with their bristly bodies and made off with the six porkers. The haul was estimated at the time to be worth a total of 30s.

Crime did not pay in Findon, not even in Elizabethan days, and he was brought to justice at the East Grinstead Assizes in the Spring of the following year.

The date of the court case was set to be 1st March 1585 and the charge was that of grand larceny. Judge Thomas Gawdy and Serjeant Francis Gawdy sat in judgement upon Richard Chapman, their lips in all probability set in thin disapproving lines. After the hearing he was decreed guilty of the crime of pig rustling in Findon and received his sentence but on this occasion he was allowed the "benefit of clergy". In those days this meant that if he could prove his literacy he would receive a lesser punishment than hanging.

Continue if you would like to read about Elizabethan Sheep Rustling in Findon.

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THIS IS FINDON — was launched in January 1999 and will grow to be a historical record of life in Findon, West Sussex, U.K.